How do people feel about this campaign to make kids under 4 sit rear facing?

[RareTiger]

Don't get me wrong I understand it's safer, but I also know sometimes it's impractical, for mine there are both fast growers and big kids my just turn 3 year old has been in a high backed booster seat for over 6 months now she 17kg wears 4-5 going into 5-6 clothes, but if the law changed I woundnt be able to use the car for her, now for preschool and shopping? fine a incontinence at times but I would just walk or get the bus I do half the time anyway, but for her speech therapy I would have to stop it the travel would mean if something even a bus is 10mins late I don't get home for my son after school or we don't get to speech therapy (3 hour bus, 2.5 hour train ride one way)
I like the current rules both sets, both sets are for different types of car seats why change something that works?
Even with my son we couldn't find a size 0+ to fit in are car we were struggling to fit him in the size 0 at 6 months old he was the size of a 18month old we had no choice but buy a size 1 forward face, he's now 5 been in a high back booster for 2 years

You pick them up , are you seriously saying your four year old is too heavy to pick up?

You can’t prevent other people crashing into you. Please don’t be that grandparent that refuses to accept the guidance has changed since you had children. Your parents possibly didn’t use a seat at all age 4 depending how old you are.

It would be safer for everyone to rear face.

It's far safer as the legs absorb the impact in a crash instead of the spine. This is particularly important for children due to spinal/skeletal development and the size of the head in comparison to the body.

They just cross their legs. It looks uncomfortable to adults, but it isn't for kids.

I still pick up my four year old and put them in their seat, the prospect of doing that for my six year old does make my back hurt at the thought of it though. Also stuffing them into that small space without banging their head looks tricky.

I'm not too fussed about a bit of mud, having kids is inevitably messy sometimes.

Mine got horrifically carsick rear facing. Which led to screaming and screaming and screaming and projectile vomitting on every car journey because she was unable to vocalise what was wrong. Scrubbing vomit off the car seat, her and out of my car after pretty much every journey was horrific and honestly it's still a difficult time to think back on because I felt so trapped (because I tried as hard as possible to not drive) and so very, very anxious to drive anywhere when I had to. I recall having to make a 1 hour drive and having to stop twice to get all of the sick off of her and just crying the whole way as my baby screamed and screamed and screamed like she was being stabbed. When I got back, I called husband to the drive way to come and rescue her while I went inside and sat in the bedroom in the dark with the door shut just crying and decompressing.

We turned her forward facing at 9 months and I've had my fair share or criticism from other mums (most of whose babies fall asleep as soon as they get in the car...). I would invite them to spend just one journey under those conditions and they would get it...

@Needspaceforlego what do ff people do?! Doesn't it make the car muddy to have them in their seat in muddy boots?

Feet are in the foot well, usually with car mats not all over the back of the seats

Have you seen the size of that kid in that photo?

You have no idea what else is going on in people's lives, pregnancy, spinal injury, not so fit grandparents, hernia, appendix surgery, c-section.
There are plenty people who couldn't safely lift a 4yo.

Making it law for a debatable increase in safely would encourage more people to flout the law completely.

Plenty other things for parliament to concentrate on to make roads safer, including compliance with existing laws, car seats and speed, make school uniforms brighter reflective.

As pp said sit them on the edge of the boot, or on the edge of the back seat/door opening and take their shoes off there. Or any other way you like, if you don’t want muddy seats.
I’d rather have that bit of faff or muddy seats over the risk of a dead/seriously injured child.

There are hundreds of cars that are between a fiat 500 and a massive 4x4, and nearly all of them will fit a rear facing seat. My 5 year old is still rear facing and his seat (a Britax) takes up less space than his little brother's Joie 360, as you don't need to recline an older child.

Nothing wrong with encouraging it but I think any law needs to be written in such a way that parents don't end up not using any seat because they can't afford the only seats on sale or can't fit one in their car, extended rear facing seats are more expensive than harnessed forward facing seats and a lot more than hbb seats. My niece is 4 and when she visited us (by plane) we borrowed a hbb and she fitted into it just fine, I can't fit an extended rear facing seat in my car.

Agreed.
Makes more sense to ensure parents are using the correct seat and it's correctly fitted than to push further laws.

As for dc not being mature enough for hbb (with seat belt) I really don't accept this at all as they were the norm from 3 when my dc were little and my dc coped just fine with them, never fidgeted, never undid it, never slipped their arms out. Extended rear facing did not exist. It's fine to encourage extended rear facing but don't make up things about seat belts

So they sit on the edge while their shoes are taken off.

You don't need to lift them, from 2 or 3 they can climb in themselves, then you just strap them in.

I know they were concerned about muddy seats 😳

On another thread it said it would save 6 lives a year. I don't know how true that is. I struggled to find decent information when I looked into RF/FF as there is a large ehco chamber of the same information being repeated. I do wonder though how many of the rear facers (of whom, as I said upthread, I am occasionally one) actively reduce the time they spend in the car though, as that surely decreases the chance of an accident by a much, much greater amount.

I would absolutely have used ERF seats if they had been available when mine were small. DD2 has always been small and I remember a friend telling me off for still having her in the baby carrier seat at 13 months which she still fitted perfectly. At 3 she used to sit in the toddler seat with her legs crossed because it was more comfortable than having them dangling.

As an aside, I watched a wonderful exchange between 2 children yesterday. They were in the back of a car, one FF and the other RF. Because they were facing one another they were able to interact with one another which wouldn't have been the same if they were both FF.